


casa

by lizamarri



Series: perrita [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: A PINCH OF ANGST ONLY, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Fluff and Angst, Gay Keith (Voltron), Keith (Voltron) is Bad at Feelings, Krolia (Voltron) is a Good Parent, M/M, aka the post space-whale consolation arc that keith nEVER GOT, he's getting there, in this household we stan and maybe are slightly attracted to krolia, welcome back to me venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:53:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29202387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizamarri/pseuds/lizamarri
Summary: He never should have left.Keith drilled that into his mind during all those days on space whale. He never should have left, not Lance, not the team, not Shiro. Ever.He did find his mom. And for that, he's forever grateful.But in return, he lost Lance.Now he has to find him again. And this time, he won't leave without telling him the truth.
Relationships: Keith & Keith's Wolf & Krolia (Voltron), Keith & Krolia (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Series: perrita [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125836
Comments: 14
Kudos: 83





	casa

**Author's Note:**

> ciao, cagnas. onestamente, lo sono stressata.
> 
> last week was midterms week. hence the stress klance writing. italian is a bitch, physics is a bitch, PUTTANA PUTTANA PUTTANEEEEEEE.
> 
> honestly, i'm probably gonna start writing the next installment already because i'm coming off of a caffeine high, so updates might be rapid fire or they might be... not.
> 
> lemme say it one more time. ciao, cagnas.

It was never supposed to be like this. 

The Blade was supposed to be temporary. The Blade was supposed to be a way for him to help, to _really_ help. 

Then Shiro went missing, then Black had no pilot, and everything fell apart. 

It seemed so unreasonable to him at the time, when he first sat on Black’s pilot seat, that _he_ could pilot the Black Lion. It’s just-- he’s not the type! He’s impulsive, feisty (according to Lance), and has got some _real_ anger issues. Those are all things a leader shouldn’t have.

A leader should be strong. Solid. Not impulsive or hotheaded, but cautious and inspiring. All of those are distinctly Shiro and distinctly not him. 

So why not Allura? Or Lance, even? They’d all be better then him!

But no. The Black Lion picked _him._

And he had a job to do. 

But he _failed._

He couldn’t protect the team when they needed it most. 

He’ll never forget the look on their faces-- on _Lance’s_ face-- when he came back. That disapproving anger that’s more quiet then loud. He would have preferred it if they’d yelled. Or screamed. In that moment, he felt as small as he did standing at his father’s grave. 

As for Lance, that’s… that’s another story. 

See, here’s where he royally screwed up. 

When Lance came to him, that day in his room, talking nervously and counting on his fingers and saying how there’s no place for him, real fear swept through Keith’s stomach. If there’s one thing he’s good at, it’s taking the fall. 

And this… this is the fall. 

With Shiro in the Black Lion, and Lance in Red, and Allura in Blue, and Hunk and Pidge still in their original ones, now everything is back to normal. 

He just doesn’t have a place anymore. 

He and Lance have kept in touch. Space texting, as it seems, _can_ reach almost across the galaxy. They talk on video every day, and, on one magical night, Lance actually flew to the space taco base and broke him out for a surprise, and he quotes, ‘space date’.

So, things with Lance are going well. They’re a little tense, but they’re going well. 

And then, Kolivan sends him on a relatively short mission. That short mission turns into a shattering reveal, and finally, _finally,_ he gets to stare into the eyes of his mother. 

She… looks like him.

When he was little, he always wondered where he had gotten his slim face and pointed jaw from. He had his father’s eyes, for the most part, but… this woman has his face. She has his nose, his chin-- god, even his crazy hair. 

His mother.

She tells him her name is Krolia. And that she wanted nothing more than to stay.

But then those two war generals are at it again with their hissy-fit-fight, and there’s no time to talk. And then they’re within the range of that damn white star, and they find the space whale. 

A month, Krolia says. Maybe two. 

Okay, he says, smiling tensely. 

He can do a month. 

* * *

It’s been two years. 

It’s been two years, and Keith’s _tired._

He wants to go home. He wants to see his family, he wants to see his boyfriend, he wants to kiss him and hug him and tell him he loves him. If there’s anything two years here has done for him, it’s knowledge. 

He loves Lance. Irrefutably, undeniably, and completely. 

Actually, there’s two plus sides against the many negatives of this mission. The second plus is Krolia. 

His mom is _funny._ She’s an absolute shit cook, she’s about a foot taller than him, and she understands a surprising amount of Earth terms. He was telling her a story once, about how Hunk made food goo ketchup, and she nodded and said, “Sugary tomato paste.” And with such a serious expression, too.

He smiled. 

The first few months were alright, before everything started to seem hopeless. Krolia taught him Galran, scratching in the dirt with a stick to make the symbols. He learned fast, according to her. 

And in the first few months, he found Kosmo. 

At first it was two blinking blue eyes from underneath a bush. Nothing like Nessie’s eyes-- these weren’t cornflower, but aquamarine, turquoise. 

Slowly, over the course of several weeks, he managed to coax that puppy out of the bush, through comforting clicks of his tongue and pieces of meat.

He isn’t Nessie. He’s someone new.

Nessie is… well, she’s a _rascal._ She’ll climb up your leg, your shoulder-- she has a certain affinity for Shiro’s head. It must be the extra fluff of hair up there. She’ll lick you awake, bat at you with her paw, and cock her head to the side to get whatever she wants, _knowing_ how cute she looks. 

Kosmo is… he’s shy. He’s a little dumb sometimes, in the adorable way, but he’s an absolute lovebug. Not adorably pestering like Nessie, but shy and sweet. He likes to curl up in the small of Keith’s back when he sleeps, a little donut of a dog behind him. 

It feels safe. Kosmo makes him feel safe. 

Plus, he can teleport. How cool is that?

And it’s nice to have someone behind him when he sleeps. 

Because when he sleeps, the dreams come. 

The worst, and sometimes best part is, he knows they're real. So when he sleeps, they come. 

It’s all in fragments. 

Blurred hair, someone running at him. Strong arms around his waist, a voice whispering into his hair. Krolia’s faint smile as she watches on. 

A bright pink blade, shimmering with energy, slicing towards his face. Violet eyes, _unnatural_ eyes, his wrist grabbing someone else’s.

An overwhelming feeling of fear, staring at the com on the Black Lion, feeling nothing but _terrified_ at the silence coming from it. A blue sky lies beyond the glass, alarmingly like Earth’s. 

Brown hands, not Lance’s at all, slim and calloused, a flash of a familiar jawline. A golden ring hangs from a chain on his neck, stationary with his limp form in a hospital bed. 

A young woman that looks like Lance, her eyebrows raised in speculation, hexagonal glasses perched on her nose. 

Soft sand beneath his feet, a familiar sun in the sky.

Galran ships.

Altean marks, not Allura’s.

Screams that could either be in victory or fear.

_Lance._

He sees Lance so much, he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. 

He sees him the visions that come from the past, too. He sees the first time they kissed, the first time they slept in the same bed. He sees them as kids, him knocking Lance out of formation, and almost laughs when he’s awake at how petty they were. 

And once, once he has a vision of the past that thankfully Krolia wasn’t there to witness, a vision of his bare legs around Lance’s, of Lance whispering in his ear in the dark, his sweaty forehead resting in the crook of Keith’s shoulder. He dreams of how hot he feels when Lance gets like that, how hot he feels _everywhere._

From that dream, Keith wakes up cold and alone. 

He rolls over, wraps his arms around Kosmo, and refuses to think of Lance like that again. 

And then, after _years,_ it’s over. It’s finally over, and he can see Lance again. 

But then they meet Romelle, who is surprisingly badass despite the fact she looks like an equestrian barbie. He flies an old altean pod, and Coran calls in on the coms. Even Coran’s voice makes him want to cry.

In the background, he sees Lance’s face.

Keith smiles, because Lance is gaping. 

So, maybe he finished what was left of his puberty years on the space whale. And he looks a little… different. A little better. 

But Lance looks the same.

He refuses to let himself look, let himself _properly_ look, until he’s jumping out of that pod and running into Lance’s arms. 

He’s seen this before. Krolia’s face, behind him, saying what he now realizes is _you didn’t tell me about this_ through a smile. Lance, whispering a stream of words into his ear, and then Lance’s lips on his. 

And he’s just as tall as Lance now. 

Lance wraps his arms around Lance’s waist, Keith’s arms slide to his biceps, and _oh,_ he can name one thing that’s definitely different. 

But Lance still kisses the same. With all he has. 

Someone coughs behind them. 

Keith breaks the kiss off, however hesitantly, and turns to the slightly blushing faces of their teammates. “Hi,” he says shyly.

Lance’s arms don’t leave his waist. He likes it that way. 

“Uhh, Keith?” Hunk asks, and he almost melts at the voice. “Not to be rude, or anything, but what is a super scary Galran lady doing here?”

And then everything blurs into the reason they came, Romelle jumping out and accusing Lotor, Allura’s surprise at another Altean. Next comes Allura flipping Lotor like a bean can, and everything just goes faster. They fight Lotor in the quintessence field, the castle is destroyed, and Shiro--

Shiro is not Shiro. 

He’s seen this, he barely remembers, on the space whale. Those artificially pink eyes, the shimmering blade. 

That blade _burns_ a reminder of their fight into his face. 

And, in the end, he has to let Shiro go. 

But he gets him back. White hair nevertheless, it’s _Shiro._

Before they set off towards Earth, he finds Lance alone in the Red Lion. “Hey,” he greets softly. 

Lance swears under his breath, surprised, and swings around in the pilot chair. He immediately brightens, and launches himself at Keith. 

He laughs. Lance’s armor clanks against his, and their lips find each other’s.

Lance turns the tide on him, his lips hot and sharp, and presses him into the pilot’s chair. Lance climbs over him, legs bracketing in Keith’s hips, and there’s that _heat_ again, the heat he missed so much on the space whale--

_NO SHENANIGANS!_

Lance curses, and falls off the pilot’s chair. 

The voice rings in Keith’s head and he blinks, still very much in kissing mode. “Wh-what?”

_No shenanigans._

“Reeedddd,” Lance whines. “There’s nowhere else to go!”

_No shenanigans, Leandro._

“We weren’t even going to start anything!”

Oh, Keith disagrees with that. They were _definitely_ starting something.

_Hijinks. Hijinks lead to shenanigans. No shenanigans._

Keith bursts into laughter. 

“C’mon,” Lance grumbles. “We’ll find some rock to make out behind.”

Keith lets himself be led off, trailing happily behind Lance. Just as they’ve made it out of the lion, a tiny _yip_ interrupts. 

“Nessie!”

Nessie comes _flying_ out of Red-- literally flying, she’s somehow launched herself through the air like a soccer ball-- and lands right into Keith’s arms. The impact punches him to the ground, and Nessie takes the opportunity to lick all over his face. Kosmo comes trotting over at the sight, snuffling Nessie to try and help.

Nessie’s _bigger._ She’s not just to his knees anymore, she’s almost as tall as his _waist._

“Oh my god, you’re so big!” he murmurs, scratching behind her ears. Kosmo sniffs at Nessie’s face, and gives her a tentative lick across the nose. 

She sniffs back, Keith momentarily forgotten. A long stream of sniffs then follow, both of the puppies nose to nose. They’re short and snuffly and _adorable._

Kosmo grfs, Nessie yips, and then they’re off. 

“Where--” Keith stops. “Where are they going.”

Lance offers a hand to help pull him up. “Honestly? I have no idea.” 

Allura summons a meeting about planning how they’re going to leave, foiling their secret makeout plans.. Coran scares him half to death with his estimation of how long it will take (again), Pidge corrects him (again), and Keith… 

Keith enters Black.

He sits tentatively on the pilot seat, and breathes. 

_Keith._

Black’s voice is stern, supportive, and welcoming all at once.

“Hi, Black,” he murmurs. “I guess we didn’t have much time to talk.”

_You hurt Leandro._

Keith blinks. “What?”

_Leandro. He hurts. He comes to cry here, where no one else will see._

“Wh-why not Red?” Keith stutters. “You’re-- you’re Shiro’s, now--”

_Takashi was alone with me for a long time. We have talked. He believes you to be the true Black Paladin, and I agree._

Lance was crying. 

Lance was _crying._

“He--” Keith chokes off. “Did he say anything? When he came in here to--”

_He missed you._

Oh, Lance. 

Because it was his love for Lance, how much he missed him, that made the walls of that Marmoran base as cold as they were. Lance’s face, which he couldn’t _touch,_ only see through the barrier of a shiny holoscreen.

But he told himself, over and over again, that he _had to._ He didn’t belong there. A Galran paladin? He was taking up a spot that Lance deserved, and Lance deserves the world. The _universe._

But now, when he thinks about it, the real reason why he left echoes through him like a terrible, terrible bell. 

_You need to speak with Leandro._

“I know,” Keith murmurs. He pushes himself off of Black’s pilot seat. “I- I will.”

He scrambles down the ramp of Black’s mouth, goodbye’s forgotten, and runs face first into Lance. 

“Hey,” he greets, breathless. 

“Hi,” Lance laughs, rubbing his nose where Keith slammed into it. But something is wrong about his face, something is too tense. “Can we take a walk?”

Keith frowns. “Sure.”

Lance weaves their fingers together, and gently leads him away. He sets off across the vaguely deserted land of the planet they’re on, the one they’ve decided to stay on for another hour or so before starting the great trek home. Across the landscape lies nothing but some rocky mountains.

In some unspoken agreement, he and Lance just walk. 

“Krolia told me how long you were gone.”

Keith stops. The boots of his red paladin suit scuff the sandy terrain, kicking up a tiny dust cloud. 

Lance doesn’t turn his head, doesn’t look him in the eye, just keeps walking. Keith trips over his feet in an effort to catch back up. 

“Lance,” he says, voice nervous and high. “Lance, _look at me.”_

Lance whips around. His jaw is tight, and he looks just a little too old for his age. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

“I was--”

“How come I don’t believe that?”

“Lance--”

Lance cuts him off. “How can you not see it?” He whispers, hands coming forward to grab Keith’s shoulder. Their eyes are inches apart. “You don’t need to be trauma-less to lead.”

“That’s not--”

“You were afraid to tell me because you thought I might pity you, or- or make sure you were _okay,_ God forbid your boyfriend makes sure you’re okay--”

“That’s not--”

“It was,” Lance spits savagely. Keith steps back at the tone. 

“I--” Lance rubs the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. It hasn’t been easy while you were gone.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

They’ve officially stopped walking, now just standing in front of each other in the dusty landscape. Over his shoulder the Lions sit, their friends in front of them almost like toy dolls from the distance.

Lance swallows. 

“The reason I left,” Keith says, taking a deep breath. “I thought it was about you. I thought that with me gone, you wouldn’t lose your place on the team.”

Lance looks outraged, like he’s about to interrupt, but Keith holds up a trembling hand. “And I- I was terrified, I was _terrified_ of losing you, of watching who you were die with no Lion to fight in, and I thought, I thought that me in the Blade was the best course of action. But that wasn’t really why.”

Keith blinks. His eyes are starting to grow blurry, and he doesn’t know why. “I was afraid. Not of losing you, of-- of losing this. I’m still stuck in this _stupid_ loop of losing the people I care about. I lost my mom before I knew her, I lost my dad when I was a kid, I lost Shiro and had to watch Adam fall apart without him, and I was terrified that I’d lose you. I was afraid, and selfish, so I ran.”

Lance says nothing. He _does_ nothing, just stands there and blinks. 

“I- I’m sorry,” Keith stutters, crossing his arms over his armored chest. “If you want to- to get it over and end this, that’s okay, and I--”

Lance kisses him. 

A little harshly, it seems, because Lance kisses him into the dirt. He falls, knocking the wind out of his lungs, but Lance is still kissing him. 

Lance’s lips are fierce, they’re _trembling,_ and they crash together on the dirt, almost rolling around with how much fire they have to claim each other. 

Somehow, Lance ends up with his legs over Keith’s hips. Something wet falls onto Keith’s cheek.

Lance is crying. 

“Oh,” Keith sighs, it sounds more like poetry than words. “Lance, don’t cry.”  
“You stupid, stupid boy,” Lance murmurs, fiercly kissing over his still-healing scar. “How could you think I’d leave you? Do you not know how much I love you?”

Keith freezes. “You love me?”

Lance laughs. It’s bittersweet; it comes with a sting. _“Tanto que me duele el corazón, cari_ _ño.”_

The soft lilt of Lance’s native language falls gently on his ears, and he brushes a stray hair from Lance’s face.

“So much it hurts,” Lance translates. “I love you so much it hurts. It hurts when you’re gone, Keith.”

“I’ve loved you for years,” Keith breathes. “Years, even before the space whale. I just… didn’t know it yet.”

Lance lifts him up. The setting sun behind him shines light like a halo, and Lance has never looked more beautiful. Tearstained, loveshaken, and lit up like an angel.

He cups Keith’s cheek with a hand. They’re both kneeling now, knees touching, barely brushing.

Lance tilts his head slightly, smiling in a way that’s softer than anything he’s ever seen. “Did you really think I was gonna go?”

Keith kisses him. 

He throws himself forward, wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck, and leaps onto his lap. They manage to stay upright, barely, as Keith offers all he has.

Lance’s arms come to curl around his waist, strong and searching as they climb up his back and rest at his shoulder blades. 

Lance’s lips are soft and salty. They kiss slowly, they kiss so _passionately_ that Keith feels like he’s going to be set on fire. That he has no other option but to _keep kissing._

And he wants. God, he wants to show Lance, to run his lips along his jaw and whisper _I love you_ into his ear on soft sheets.

But for now, he’s fine like this. With Lance’s arms on his waist, his own on Lance’s chest, and their lips never ceasing, never stopping as they move with a rhythm previously unexplored.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

**Author's Note:**

> lemme sprinkle in angst like paprika for y'all there you go
> 
> GIVE ME COMMENTS I CRAVE SERATONIN
> 
> also, someone please tell me if my spanish is way off. i'm an italian student, and they're kinda similar, but not ~quite~ so i could be super grammatically incorrect. and i promise, the next one will be _way_ fluffier. cross my heart, hope to die, yadda yadda yadda. see you next time, arrivederci!


End file.
